Inverness Shelter for the Homeless

A pilot scheme last Winter saw Inverness churches working alongside the Bethany Christian Trust and local statutory agencies to provide overnight accommodation and meals for the homeless. Vivian Roden gives an update report.

Following on from last February’s two week Inverness Shelter Pilot Project in partnership with the Bethany Christian Trust, and the evaluation Conference in March, we’re going to try to do it again next winter – but for longer!

Since April, the Church of Scotland’s Presbytery of Inverness Church & Community Committee has hosted three meetings of church representatives from around 22 local congregations drawn from different church denominations (many thanks to the Salvation Army for providing their Hall for the last meeting – and for the tea and biscuits!) and the upshot was agreement to try to bring about a Care Shelter from 7 December 2009 to the morning of 1 March 2010. [Ed note: This included some of the coldest nights for many years; - 17C]

Inverness Presbytery took into consideration the success and value to the community of last year’s Inverness Shelter Pilot Project and has urged congregations to consider ways of contributing to this year’s Care Shelter – to be run again by the Bethany Christian Trust in partnership with local churches.

Please begin by engaging in prayerful consideration of how best to enable practical support for a project which shows the Kingdom of Christ to the homeless in Inverness by demonstrating His love in tangible terms. We need all the prayer we can get!

The Presbytery also commended the Church & Community Committee’s efforts in working with others from different denominations on ventures such as this.

We appreciate that churches may already have existing commitments, but would appeal to all churches within walking distance of the city centre to consider, if at all possible, providing church hall accommodation to keep rough sleepers off the street in the coldest months of the winter.

If this is really not an option, could city centre churches put together a catering team or do some fundraising? The significance of “walking distance of the city centre” (and we’re probably looking at about a 2 mile radius here) is that because this is going to be a much larger undertaking this year, it’s not going to be possible to run a Breakfast Club, so the service users will be walking back to the city centre after a continental breakfast in the Shelter.

Getting all the accommodation, catering and funds in place is obviously going to be a major challenge, and we really are relying on the churches to make this project happen! Think your church is too far away from the city centre to help? Not at all. If you were able to put together a catering team or help with fundraising, we’d love to hear from you.

And we’ve already had some offers of help. We are very grateful to Captain James Elliot for generously provisionally offering the Salvation Army Hall for all 13 Friday nights of the project; the to the Free North Church who have also very kindly agreed to the Madras Street Hall being used again – as well as to the Black Isle Volunteers (see what we mean by out of town churches being able to help!) who are willing to take part on the catering side again. We are very grateful to them all.

We need to have the venues and catering teams in place by the beginning of October at the very latest, to give Bethany time to recruit and train the two Project Workers and two Project Leaders they will be employing locally to professionally run the Shelter.

We are also very pleased – and relieved! - to have Bob Glover, the Presbytery Treasurer (ably assisted by Alex Hutcheson from the Church & Community Committee) in charge of fundraising, and other offers of help have come from Margaret Ross, the Salvation Army’s Divisional Manager in Aberdeen who is willing to run Food Hygiene Classes for catering teams who don’t have the necessary certification – and from Chris and Faith Ougham of Hilton Church who are willing to run (uncertificated) first aid courses for volunteers and to act as overnight reserves – and, once again, we are very grateful to all of them.

But we need more help! If you can help with church hall accommodation, or catering, please contact:Vivian RodenTel. 01808 511 355 or 07887 704 915 or E-mail Vivian

If you can help with fundraising, or wish to make a personal donation, please contact:Bob GloverTel. 01463 793926 or E-mail Bob

Let’s try together to help homeless people this winter.

----------

Ed footnote: In a covering e-mail Vivian says:

Dear Fellow ChristianProposed Care Shelter for next winterIn business and worldly terms - it's bonkers. Far too high a cost for too few people, given that the final agreement of the number of genuine rough sleepers who used the Shelter was 7 or 8. I think it's probably also difficult for statutory bodies and established voluntary sector homelessness organisations to justify this too - especially in these times of financial restrictions. They have to use the limited resources at their disposal for the benefit of the greatest number of people in need of their services.But from the churches' point of view, we are charged by Christ Himself, to help those we meet who are in need - whatever the circumstances, or the reasons behind that need. The lessons Jesus taught us from the Good Samaritan to the Prodigal Son have to be put into action - showing Christ's love and care for all his people in a practical way, whoever they are and however they got to their present situation.It's not about the churches coming in to tell the statutory agencies and homelessness professionals what to do, or how to do their jobs, or presuming we know the answers to the complex and diverse problems surrounding homelessness, and especially rough sleeping. The churches don't pretend to have the answers - we just see the consequences and try to help.And it's certainly not about the churches doing this to feel good about ourselves - the prospect of putting in place all the church hall accommodation, catering and fundraising necessary to bring this about is truly the stuff of nightmares! We need lots of prayer.It is about the churches plugging gaps in provision (which are there because hard decisions on the best use of resources have had to be made by the statutory bodies) where we can, and where our resources allow - and about the churches working with all the other agencies involved to try to make the winter a safer place for rough sleepers.And, ultimately, it is about us in the churches being able to answer Christ, Yes, we saw you homeless, and we tried to help.Let's not underestimate God, or try to limit His power. We in the churches are His agents, ours the hands to do His work. As Christians we submit ourselves to the will of God and if it doesn't go ahead, will accept that it was not His will for this project to happen, but with God nothing is impossible - certainly not finding the means to make the Care Shelter happen! Let's do this in His Name! And prayerfully commit the outcome to His will and purpose.Bob and I will look forward to hearing from you!With kind regards.Vivian

Vivian Roden, 01/08/2009

Feedback:

Colin Rous (Guest)

03/08/2009 18:38

Having moved away to Turkey following the tragic closure of The Salvation Army Centre (Huntly House) I am so pleased to see that the Churches of the Inverness area are gathering together to provide shelter for these vulnerable people who find themselves. Many of these people are just like you and me - but they lost sight of the Christian love and support that was available. When we think of the 'heavy burdens' being carried by these people I thank God that they have the opportunity, once again, to turn to Him who is our strength.My prayers are with all of you as you step into the hearts and lives of these wonderful people and I pray that you always see them as God's children first and homeless second. We may not like what they have become but we can always find love for the person who was created in His image.God bless you all.Colin RousGunlukbasi in Turkey

Christine (Northern Ireland) (Guest)

20/10/2009 12:36

My dad is currently rough sleeping in Inverness somewhere and I am very worried about him. I would be extremely grateful for somewhere like that so his life is not cut short during the winter. chrisy_gamble@hotmail.co.uk

Hello Christine, And of course very sorry to hear all of that. I will try and point you to some of those in the Inverness churches and Christian community that might be able to help (and of course some of those that I am thinking off might be in touch with you directly having read your message).

carrie (Guest)

31/01/2015 01:16

hi there i dont suppose you could shed some light onto this please basically yous took me in when i was 15 years old and i was found homless i was sat in a train station sleeping when my friend found me and brought me to you yous were very welcome and a guy working there gave me some food and essintials firstly i would like to thankyou very much for that , without your help i would hate to think where id be but i am now 21 this year have a two year old and im now also engaged :)secondly growing up since being homeless its made me realise alot not only that sometimes you need someone to care but to hold your hand and guide you through the hard times i would be ever so happy to hear back from you if possible regarding maybe some work to do the same as youd did for me i belive its my way of thanking yous, theres no better way than knowing what someones going through and being able to help even if it is just a roof over their head that was the most i was greatful for somewhere to call home

sorry im going on about it alot now haha i just feel so strongly to wanting to help others my email is [address removed for security reasons - Ed.]

i look forward to possibly hearing from yous again thanks ever so much and god bless xx

Thank you for sharing your story. It is good of you to want to help others as a way of saying "Thank you" for the help that you received.

I will be in touch with you directly via e-mail as you will not (now) be able to post onto this thread. (I have had to restrict access regarding non-site members because of the abuse of the posting facility.)